Below Average

Poor

Speaking of Rough Beasts, I had to go look it up, because it turns out, it was also entirely forgettable.

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I'm just here for spoilers going into The Crimson Shadow and I probably won't read this book, but I definitely don't agree with this statement. Rough Beasts was one of the worst books that I have ever read...I wish it were forgettable. There was no satisfaction to be had (by me at least) in reading that book or talking about it; I have a feeling you'll feel the same way at the end of all of this thread.

The Kira wormhole stuff actually sounds like the most interesting part of the story that has been described...It actually has me tempted to give DRG3 one last chance.

^True, I'm not saying it absolutely proves it's part of a serial. But it does give some indication that it's not a completely self-contained text. And like I said, "The Fall" suggests it's a story about a specific event, whereas the others just suggest stories about organizations.

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Can I get you to comment on whether The Fall is meant to be a serial novel or a series of novels? There's a huge difference here. If you're arguing that it should be obvious that The Fall is a serial novel, then I'm blown away, because nothing before has suggested such.

^I'm not saying anything is "obvious." I'm just saying there's not a complete lack of evidence. I don't disagree with you that it could've been promoted more clearly by having a "Book 1" indication, but I'm just saying that there was some evidence that it was part of a larger whole, that you're overstating your case when you say there was no indication whatsoever. As with most things, the truth is between the extreme positions.

^I'm not saying anything is "obvious." I'm just saying there's not a complete lack of evidence. I don't disagree with you that it could've been promoted more clearly by having a "Book 1" indication, but I'm just saying that there was some evidence that it was part of a larger whole, that you're overstating your case when you say there was no indication whatsoever. As with most things, the truth is between the extreme positions.

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But now you've confused me. I don't know whether I should expect The Fall to be a serial novel or a series of novels. Going just off RaD, I guess the conclusion would be that The Fall is a serial novel. If that's the case, I will probably not purchase the rest of it until the complete novel has been published.

The author states explicitly in his afterword that each story is meant to stand alone. This one sadly does not. The problem lies in the way the ds9 relaunch has been stopped and started over and over. It's half way now between a reboot and a continuation, and I am reminded of O'Brien' s mothers thoughts on eating and talking. To give one shining example, much was made of the new flying bit of the park. No one flew after the test run. It's mentioned over and over, but nothing comes of it. Destiny worked in three parts because a lot of stuff happened in each book, even if the overall story wasn't finished. Cold equations told three stories, and was overall satisfying even if the resurrection of Lal felt somewhat dropped in the second two books (like this book, stuff happens on the last page then.....what's next? Oh an insane two year gap.) The books need to decide if they are tv series, with a regular paced on going plot made up of individual stories, or if each miniseries is a movie...every year or two you get a big action packed tale, sometimes with a large amount of time passing in between. Ds9 works best as a series, and the author knows this....I feel his pain at having to basically say 'hey I was setting up stuff in the last two books, and that stuff happened, but we need a jumping on point for new readers, and having no ds9 station in its anniversary year is bad, so here we are two years on and....action. Eventually. I promise. Just as soon as I finish with this exposition on what you missed, and on what people who are just starting missed, and anyone who didn't watch emissary lately missed, anything you just plain forgot about...and look, Bajoran history flashback that may not be real! Where was I? Oh yeah JFK anniversary too...
It's a shame. The odo sequence is beautifully done. He knows and loves the ds9 crew as much as I do, and I feel that. Even keiko' s haircut is nice to read about, and yeah the painfully short hug and everything is ok with dad and Bashir is long overdue, but tiny and I have a feeling it's too little too late for something very important in two books time. But nothing happens for most of the book. I suspect a lot is down to editorial choices. The two year gap in particular sucks, the cardassian leader suddenly buggering off to go be in the next book seems clumsy, and the blurb for that one is half ruined, because we know bacco isn't going to get there. And I am saying it now....we will never see that missing ds9 'series' set on bajor between stations.

But now you've confused me. I don't know whether I should expect The Fall to be a serial novel or a series of novels.

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I haven't read any of it yet, so I can't say. I'm just making a limited point about the title, not a blanket declaration about the structure or merits of the entire work.

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Isn't it telling though, that by making your point, you've only served to confuse me?

jaime said:

The author states explicitly in his afterword that each story is meant to stand alone. This one sadly does not.

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I'll be honest, I never read the back-matter in books, so I didn't notice this. But I went back and looked, and you're correct. DRGIII specifically writes that the authors of The Fall have "produce(d) five single novels that, when taken together, form a cohesive, overarching story." So The Fall is not intended to be a serial novel and as such, each novel should be able to stand on its own, with its own story arc. I have to say, this is not the case for Revelation and Dust. Being a part of "a cohesive, overarching story" does not exempt the author from providing a cohesive story in his novel.

They served the clear purpose of continuing the ongoing serialized story of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which has always -- on TV and in the Relaunch novels -- contained character-based B-plots that were not directly related to the main plot. Or are you going to say that, for instance, the Quark/Garak scenes should have been removed from "The Way of the Warrior?"

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There was a nugget here that I missed the first time through, that I think deserves pointing out. This novel was not marketed as a serial. Serials are something entirely different.

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All DSN Relaunch novels are inherently serial. Further, this was marketed as part one of the miniseries The Fall -- clear serialization in that direction as well. This book was clearly a serialized entry from the start.

They served the clear purpose of continuing the ongoing serialized story of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which has always -- on TV and in the Relaunch novels -- contained character-based B-plots that were not directly related to the main plot. Or are you going to say that, for instance, the Quark/Garak scenes should have been removed from "The Way of the Warrior?"

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There was a nugget here that I missed the first time through, that I think deserves pointing out. This novel was not marketed as a serial. Serials are something entirely different.

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All DSN Relaunch novels are inherently serial. Further, this was marketed as part one of the miniseries The Fall -- clear serialization in that direction as well. This book was clearly a serialized entry from the start.

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I think at this point, further discussion on this topic between the two of us is quite pointless. I do see your reference point, I acknowledge where you're coming from, I just think it's entirely incorrect. A "serial novel" is something entirely different than a "series of novels." RaD is seemingly a "serial novel" stuck in a "series of novels." It doesn't seem that you can acknowledge my reference point. So I guess we needn't bother one another any longer.

Isn't it telling though, that by making your point, you've only served to confuse me?

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I think you're simply trying to read more into my comment than I intended.

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Maybe I did. I honestly had not considered the idea that The Fall might be a serial novel, broken into 5 parts, starting with Revelation and Dust. When you mentioned it as a possibility, when it finally sank into my thick skull, it threw me off balance. It made me reconsider my entire argument. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm wrong, but it does take me a while to figure it out, then double check it.

Fortunately, jaime mentioning the back-matter material that DRGIII himself wrote, explaining that The Fall was not a serial novel split into 5 parts, restored my balance. It allowed me to stand by my original argument. But, I was definitely confused there for a while.

I haven't read the book yet so I can't comment on the text itself, but I was just looking on B&N to see which The Fall book was next and when it was released and noticed there is not indication anywhere on the books that they are a miniseries or what order they are meant to be read in. So with that in mind, I can see where people might have gone into this expecting something more stand alone than what we appear to have gotten. I wouldn't blame any of this on DRG III though, this strikes me as something that would be more the fault of the marketing people than the writer himself.

EDIT: I was just looking around at the reviews on Amazon, and the majority of them are definitely more line with the negative comments here. It's definitely starting to hurt my anticipation for this, not enough to keep from reading it, but I'm definitely not as excited as I was before the reviews started coming out.

EDIT: I was just looking around at the reviews on Amazon, and the majority of them are definitely more line with the negative comments here. It's definitely starting to hurt my anticipation for this, not enough to keep from reading it, but I'm definitely not as excited as I was before the reviews started coming out.

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Just bear in mind that two-thirds of the people here rated it above average or outstanding.

EDIT: I was just looking around at the reviews on Amazon, and the majority of them are definitely more line with the negative comments here. It's definitely starting to hurt my anticipation for this, not enough to keep from reading it, but I'm definitely not as excited as I was before the reviews started coming out.

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Just bear in mind that two-thirds of the people here rated it above average or outstanding.

At which point does this hunt for new readers(creating jumping on points or defying Trek lore)become detrimental to the whole project?
I haven't yet read this book but the thought of yet another time gap is not filling me with enthusiasm.All these revamps and relaunches are getting hard to keep current with.
I realise that treklits and the tv show are different mediums but at some point the book universe needs to settle down and just get on with it's business.

Just bear in mind that two-thirds of the people here rated it above average or outstanding.

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Yes. That's very telling, isn't it?

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Not really, no. Look through the history of those threads, you'll find that there's a certain subset of people here that think EVERY Star Trek book is outstanding, and their definition of 'poor' is voting above average.

Not just in the Lit forum, happens in most of the tv/movie threads as well. Everything's awesome or sucks, not much room for something just being ok...

Given how review threads usually go in here, the general tone and comments in this thread are a pretty good indication that it was not as well received as some of the previous books. Can draw your own conclusions about the worth of the voting buttons from there, but if you consider that most threads only draw a few negative votes, 1/3rd negative still means something by that standard...

Just bear in mind that two-thirds of the people here rated it above average or outstanding.

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Yes. That's very telling, isn't it?

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Not really, no. Look through the history of those threads, you'll find that there's a certain subset of people here that think EVERY Star Trek book is outstanding, and their definition of 'poor' is voting above average.

Not just in the Lit forum, happens in most of the tv/movie threads as well. Everything's awesome or sucks, not much room for something just being ok...

Given how review threads usually go in here, the general tone and comments in this thread are a pretty good indication that it was not as well received as some of the previous books. Can draw your own conclusions about the worth of the voting buttons from there, but if you consider that most threads only draw a few negative votes, 1/3rd negative still means something by that standard...

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Given that Halliwell has made clear his dislike of this book I think his comment was more along the lines of the fan audience on here being happier to overlook its flaws than the general audience on Amazon who don't follow the book series to the same extent.

Personally as mentioned I'm not a big fan of the book but I don't think it's a disaster like the last two Titan books. The DS9 bits are mainly fine if a bit predictable.

Just bear in mind that two-thirds of the people here rated it above average or outstanding.

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Yes. That's very telling, isn't it?

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Not really, no. Look through the history of those threads, you'll find that there's a certain subset of people here that think EVERY Star Trek book is outstanding, and their definition of 'poor' is voting above average.

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Unless the book is by Michael A Martin; it is ok to think his books are poorly written here. You are only allowed to say that DRG3 books did not work for you. Apparently it is not possible to disagree about the quality of an author's work.

To be clear, I would prefer that Martin never write Trek again but I would rather read another book by him than DRG3.

Not really, no. Look through the history of those threads, you'll find that there's a certain subset of people here that think EVERY Star Trek book is outstanding, and their definition of 'poor' is voting above average.

Not just in the Lit forum, happens in most of the tv/movie threads as well. Everything's awesome or sucks, not much room for something just being ok...

Given how review threads usually go in here, the general tone and comments in this thread are a pretty good indication that it was not as well received as some of the previous books. Can draw your own conclusions about the worth of the voting buttons from there, but if you consider that most threads only draw a few negative votes, 1/3rd negative still means something by that standard...

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Given that Halliwell has made clear his dislike of this book I think his comment was more along the lines of the fan audience on here being happier to overlook its flaws than the general audience on Amazon who don't follow the book series to the same extent.

Personally as mentioned I'm not a big fan of the book but I don't think it's a disaster like the last two Titan books. The DS9 bits are mainly fine if a bit predictable.

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Yep. That's exactly what I meant. And I agree with you. This book was better than the last two Titan books.

Speaking of Rough Beasts, I had to go look it up, because it turns out, it was also entirely forgettable.

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Rough Beasts was one of the worst books that I have ever read...I wish it were forgettable.

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You'll just have to face it that it's down to taste. I thought Rough Beasts was great (as were its follow ups Plagues of Night and Raise The Dawn). Out of those first four Typhoon Pact novels I really didn't like Zero Sum Game and Seize The Fire. ZSG in particular seemed popular with other readers.